Pontypool By Tony Burgess; 58 Minutes BBC World Service / Worldplay Broadcast: June 21, 2009
In the sleepy town of Pontypool no one is safe from a mysterious new virus so devastating it will leave you literally speechless.
“Shock jock Grant Mazzy has, once again, been kicked-off the Big City airwaves and now the only job he can get is the early morning show at CLSY Radio in Pontypool Ontario, which broadcasts from the basement of the small town’s only church. What begins as another boring day of school bus cancellations, due to yet another massive snow storm, quickly turns deadly when reports start piling in of people developing strange speech patterns and evoking horrendous acts of violence start piling in. But there’s nothing coming in on the news wires. Is this really happening? Before long, Grant and the small staff at CLSY find themselves trapped in the radio station as they discover that this insane behaviour taking over the town is actually a deadly virus being spread through the English language itself. Do they stay on the air in the hopes of being rescued or, are they in fact providing the virus with its ultimate leap over the airwaves and into the world?
Based on the novel Pontypool Changes Everything. Pontypool was adapted for the stage from a 2009 CBC radio play by Tony Burgess. The radio script was, in turn, an adaptation of his screenplay for the and the 2008 Bruce McDonald horror movie of the same name. And the movie was based on his 1995 novel, Pontypool Changes Everything, part of the author's Pontypool Trilogy.
Starring Stephen McHattie, Lisa Poole, Georgina Reilly, Rick Roberts, Hrant Alianak and Daniel Fathers .
Pontypool follows a radio DJ who tracks a frightening new virus as it spreads through his small town. Disgraced shock jock Grant Mazzy has hit rock bottom. The one time popular morning zoo radio announcer has wound up doing traffic and temperature at a small station in the even smaller town of Pontypool, Ontario. Other than Grant's bizarre encounter with a babbling woman on the way to work, it's a typical small-time news day. And then the calls start to pour in; people are talking about bizarre mob attacks, military quarantines, and people eating other people. As reports of escalating violence in the streets come in, tensions rise in the basement studio where Mazzy continues to broadcast and the staff must ask, "Is this more fake news?" Is Mazzy a victim of a small town prank? And if it is not a prank, will anyone survive?